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There aren’t a lot of awards for people in public education. 

So, when �첥��Ƶ’s Emily Burgis, who has spent most of her career in public education with the York Region District School Board as a teacher, guidance counsellor and curriculum consultant, learned she won an award from the Canadian Society for Education through Art (CSEA), she was thrilled. 

“Teachers don’t often get awards, they usually only see rewards by seeing the impact they have on students,” she says. “To be recognized by an organization outside the system – it’s a real honour.” 

Burgis is a visiting professor in the Faculty of Education at York’s Markham and Keele campuses where she applies her knowledge and experience as a teacher, with a focus on education that is grounded in equity and inclusion. 

She says York has a “deep commitment to equity work,” adding that she has enjoyed educating teacher-candidates in visual arts, language, literacy and more. 

A contributor to Faculty of Education Professor Tanya Berg’s Art Based Pedagogies, a collection of essays about integrating culturally relevant creative processes in K to 12 education, Burgis is an advocate for teaching and learning that prioritizes equitable practices.  

Last month, she was named one of four honourees across the country to receive the Rita L. Irwin Art Teaching Dissemination of Knowledge award. 

The award celebrates the creativity, insight and pedagogical leadership of art teachers across Canada through 80-minute online conversations that serve as spaces to exchange, reflect and envision the future of art education. 

“Walk by a display of student artwork in a school with a strong art program, and you will have the unique experience of being able to actually see and learn what students are thinking and feeling about their communities and themselves,” says Michael Emme, professor emeritus from the University of Victoria and director of publications and resources with CSEA. 

He says Burgis was chosen as the Ontario awardee because of her “ongoing commitment to culturally sensitive visual co-creation and collaboration in schools, school districts, universities and the province."  Her focus on building art programming around themes that invite and value the diverse experience of students is significant, he adds.

Burgis says she approaches art instruction with a “disruption strategy.”

Joni Acruff, race and art education expert, is quoted as saying: “How can art be both white property and my personal tool for destabilizing racial power?” Burgis says she often reflects on this in her work with educators, focusing on supporting students who are most marginalized. 

“There’s a real contradictory nature of art,” Burgis says. “When we think about art, we have to hold both ideas in our heads – that it can be a tool of liberation and a tool of oppression.”

And, while most teacher-candidates understand and relate to this pedagogy, she says they can get stuck in putting it into practice. 

For students in a K to 8 classroom, art is often a Friday afternoon activity that is a “reward.” And mostly, Burgis notes, teachers will end up with 25 copies of the same thing. Part of the problem is approaching art instruction in sequences around media – such as drawing, painting or sculpture – which can limit thinking to the Euro-American canon. 

Instead, she suggests educators use themes, which supports the inclusion of a diverse range of art makers. 

“You need to be intentional,” Burgis says. “I know that I am approaching this equity work as a white woman. There are times when I need to lean in and listen and times when I need to use my privilege to create space and then get out of the way.” 

Teaching is naturally a creative profession – and the fun part, she says, is creating and designing for learning.

“By focusing on the power of ‘and,’ you can move beyond performative actions and instead create substantive change,” Burgis says. 

In the classroom, that can include changing the way assessments are conducted to create differentiated opportunities for students to show what they know. She put this into practice with York teacher-candidates for a language and literacy project; students came back with songs, sketch comedy and even spoken word. “It was joyful to evaluate,” she says. 

For future educators, Burgis hopes to encourage them to be open, listen to what students are saying and to be adaptable. 

“This work is hard sometimes,” she says. “But when we can have a positive impact at the student’s desk, it’s worth it.” 

With files from Karen Martin-Robbins

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